"there are probably more captive BPs being produced annually at this point than there are WILD BPs left to hatch on their own!"



This is a serious misrepresentation of fact.



Taken from Barker's book,



Which summerized states



If the population in Ghana farmland is slightly less than one ball python per acre (estimated, but on par with study results) that in GHANA alone the total population is roughly 18 million adults, if gravid females comprise 22 percent of the population as they did in his study and on average laid 8 eggs (average of 30 wild clutches in the study) than each year 32 million eggs are laid. Even allowing for overestimation by a factor of TEN they would be hard to classify as endangered (Gorzula 1998)



When we allow our personal feelings to interfere with the facts you can easily doom a species by "protecting" it. Believe me, if Ball pythons were not a source of income for the locals in the countries which allow thier export they would be killed and eaten or thier habitats would be modified to make room for something that does make money. As much as it pains people to admit it often commercialization of a species often ensures thier continued existance. When you allow the genie out of the bottle (allowing government to step in and ban importation) it's impossible to put it back....next thing you know those nice people from HSUS or USF&G who helped you with your crusade are starting thier own petitions and championing legistlation to ban you from keeping Ball pythons or any other animal regardless of thier origin...we must watch who we align ourselves with.

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